


Transported in a Dream

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Marvel
Genre: Asgard, Childhood, Comics, Gen, Loki - Freeform, Marvel - Freeform, Schizophrenia, Thor - Freeform, criminal minds - Freeform, iceman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 05:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15478254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Transported in a Dream

Having to take care of his mother was exhausting, especially at the tender age of 12 when he had no friends to speak of, a college course load and especially heavy expectations sitting on his small but slowly toughening shoulders. He loved his mother with all his heart and he would always take care of her - happily - but it was tiring.

Once a week after class, he would walk home from school a different way than usual so he could pass by the comic book shop. They didn’t have a lot of money, but he did get a small stipend from the school as part of his scholarship so he had a little spending money. 

As he slipped quietly into the shop, hoping that his continual tormentors had grown tired of torturing him, he immediately darted back toward the owner. His name was Rudra Laghari and Spencer though he was quite possibly the coolest person he’d ever met in real life. He was unabashedly a nerd, but everyone loved him for it. Spencer hoped to emulate him one day and considering Rudra had been reading comics since he was a kid, when Spencer first showed up he took an immediate liking to him and started engaging him in conversations on all types of comics. Thor was Spencer’s favorite. Everyone he met assumed he’d love Bruce or Tony more because of their intellect matching Spencer’s, but he’d always felt that Thor was both intelligent and infinitely kind. 

“Hey kid,” Rudra said. “Those assholes leave you alone?”

“They have been lately,” Spencer smiled. “Thanks.”

Rudra might have thrown them out of the store and threatened them with his numerous black belts. “No need to thank me,” he replied, “So what are we looking for today. More Thor?”

“Aren’t I always?”

After nearly 30 minutes, he decided on one of the last issues of the original Thor series, but then Rudra surprised him. “Okay, so I know you want to buy that and you absolutely should, but I just got my hands on an older Thor comic.”

“Really?”

“Number 377. It came out in 1987.” As other older kids went in and out of the store, Rudra told him all about the story surrounding the comic he had in hand. “Now, this is going to be part of my personal collection, but knowing you and trusting you, I would let you borrow it for a couple of days if you want.”

There was no mirror around so he couldn’t see himself, but he was pretty sure his eyes held the stars in them right now. “Really? I swear I’ll be careful with it. No bent pages, no stains, no nothing. I’ll read it at my desk.”

“Good, I’ll put it in a separate cover and slip it into your bag with these,” he said, placing issues 500 and 501 into the bag. With the old comic in hand and a couple new ones for his own collection, he placed them carefully in his backpack, thanked Rudra profusely and headed home.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get to read it immediately because his mother needed dinner and her medicine and she was having a particularly bad couple of days. But once she was fed and he got a little bit of homework done, he pulled out the issue Rudra had lent him. The pressures of his young life melted away as he turned the pages. Loki had captured Iceman. Since Thor was his favorite Avenger, Loki quickly became his favorite antagonist; there was something about the adopted brother that Spencer related to. 

—–

All of a sudden, he bolted upright. He felt his hair move so there had to be a breeze, but he wasn’t outside. When he opened his eyes, all he saw was a cliff’s edge, ice and a strange looking house - it was almost like a haunted house except more grand and stylish. “I’m not awake, am I?” He asked himself. “I have to be asleep.”

If he was here, he might as well have some fun though. Walking up to the front door, he inched it open and peeked inside. He recognized this place. It was Loki’s castle…was he in Asgard?

The smile ran from his face when he heard a silky, booming voice. “Who’s there?”

Spencer turned to see a tall man. He didn’t look exactly like he did in the comics; he wasn’t wearing the helmet. His throat was dry. “I’m Spencer Reid.”

Loki looked down at the small child and instantly knew he was not where he belonged. “You are not Asgardian?”

“No,” Spencer replied, his eyes glued directly to his feet.

“Well, it turns out neither am I. Where are you from?”

“Nevada. You don’t think this is weird? Me being here?”

“Midgard. Interesting. How did you arrive here? And no, not really. The seemingly unexplainable happens in Asgard all the time.” His voice became a little more heated with each question. “What do you want with me?”

“N-N-Nothing,” Spencer stammered, waving his hands in front of his face. “I was doing s-schoolwork and then I was reading a comic about you and I think I fell asleep. I think I’m dreaming.”

“What’s a comic?”

“A story with pictures. It usually involves a hero and a villain and lots of fighting.”

“I must be the villain,” he smiled cruelly. “So you must be here to see Thor. I hate to tell you I don’t know where he is right now, Young Midgardian.”

It seemed like Loki liked him more than most people on Earth did. Of course he did; he was dreaming after all. “I’m not looking for anyone,” Spencer reiterated. “Even if I was, who says I wouldn’t be looking for you?”

“No one looks for me unless they want trouble, Midgardian.” 

“You and I are a lot alike,” Spencer said, trying to gain the man’s trust. Was he man? God? Comic book character? What was happening? 

Loki scoffed. “Me like you? I am a God, child. You are nothing like me.”

Spencer got that a lot. That he was so different that he couldn’t possibly be relatable to anyone. “I know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind.”

Loki wanted to disagree. To tell this little flea of a child that he, Loki, Prince of Asgard, was afraid of nothing, but he couldn’t. “How would you know what that’s like?”

“My mother. She has a disease that affects her brain and it can be hereditary, so I wonder every day whether I’ll end up like her. Whether or not I’ll lose the ability to connect with reality. You’re not like me. But I know the feeling. I know the battles that rage in your head when no one else is there.” He was in dream-Asgard! Why was he ruining it with thoughts of what might be?!

“Come child.”

“To where?” Spencer asked, as he followed behind the man clad in green and black into the gold-gilded hallways. It looked a lot like Thor’s home in the comics except with darker accents for a darker mind. 

“You say you’re dreaming,” Loki replied. “I will show you around until you wake up.”

A smile crept onto Spencer’s face as he realized how similar they both were. Loki was the only one that lived here. Previously, his wife, Sigyn, had too, but she was no longer around. He lived alone and was left to stew in his own thoughts. Basically, it was Spencer’s existence in a nutshell. 

When Loki pushed open the grand doors before them, Spencer’s eyes darted toward the back of the room. There was a machine in the back of the room and a man trapped within its midst. “Is that Iceman?” It was from the comic he was reading. He was dreaming the rest of the comic. Loki nodded, smirking as he strode outside the range of frost that the machine couldn’t contain. “You made this machine?”

“I did.” He was close to being able to bring his kind back to their full strength. 

Across the room, past the sheen of frost, Spencer saw a few stones. They didn’t look like the Infinity stones, but they did look like something he’d seen before - the Norn Stones. “You’re using those to power the machine and you’re not taking his powers you’re enhancing them,” Spencer said. If Loki was one thing it was unpredictable.

“Very good, child. What did you say your name was?” 

“Spencer.”

“You are correct, Spencer. Can you tell me why?”

Spencer knew better than to trust Loki. After all, he was the God of Mischief. But Loki was being open with him. He wasn’t used to it with the exception of his mother, Rudra and a few professors. “You want to bring the Frost Giants back to full power. With his powers, Iceman could do that.”

“You are an intelligent child.”

“I have an IQ of 187,” Spencer said on autopilot. “Do you still have the mind gem? Or at least some of its power?”

Loki pulled his eyes from the machine and turned toward Spencer. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, it can allow you to get into his mind. Even from out here, so you would be out of danger and able to bring down whatever walls he’s managing to build up. Obviously he’s fighting this. You can see it in his body language and the look in his eyes.” When Spencer actually looked toward the young god, he raised an eyebrow. 

“It’s too bad you’re dreaming,” Loki replied. “You could do well here.”

Just as Loki was going to grab the item in question for his machine, the doors flew open. “The Frost Giants,” he whispered. “Let’s move. ”Hide.”

He wasn’t exactly sure where to go but instinct brought him around the corner and in a small cubby near the kitchen. Loki bellowed for them to leave, but a battle broke out right in front of Spencer’s eyes. Shards of ice shot in all directions, cracking like glass as they fell to the floor. He couldn’t see much, only a few of the giants but Loki was still yelling - incoherent words that Spencer couldn’t quite make out - so he had to be physically okay.

Suddenly, Loki was at his side. “Follow me. We must leave.”

“What happened?”

“Using Iceman has had an unforeseen affect on my people. It’s driven them mad,” he said matter of factly. “I cannot win this fight and you cannot stay here with them.”

Before Spencer could object, the god grabbed his hand and dragged him out a back entrance. “If you die in a dream, you just wake up,” Spencer reassured him. Actually, he wasn’t sure. That’s just what he’d heard. 

In the real world, he had no physical skill to speak of, but he was running alongside Loki with no problem. “You are an interesting and amusing Midgardian. I’d like to keep you around for a while longer.”

Spencer almost blushed. Loki was a flatterer if it fit his plans, but considering Spencer’s time here was brief, he couldn’t think of a reason why the god would be flattering him if it wasn’t true. They continued to run, passed mile-high walls of ice that stretched as far as the eye could see. “Who’s that?” Spencer asked.

“Perfect,” Loki crooned. As they stepped closer to the body, Spencer realized he was still alive. And it was Thor. 

“What happened to him?”

“I do not know. But this will keep the Frost Giants off our path,” he replied, bending down to pick up his brother. “Hold on to me and reman behind me no matter what.”

Quickly, Spencer felt himself blip out of existence only to return unharmed back in Loki’s castle amidst a sea of screams, clattering weapons and hollow echoes. A sly smile came to the god’s face as he left his brother on the floor in view of the Frost Giants. “You’re leaving him there?” Spencer asked.

“My safety is paramount to me,” he said swiftly, walking toward where Iceman was still in captivity. “This is how we are, Thor and I.”

Spencer wondered why he wouldn’t admit to himself that he loved his brother, but that was another problem for another time. “Appealing to Iceman won’t work,” he said, tugging gently on Loki’s cape as they strolled in Iceman’s direction. “You kidnapped him. He’s not going to stop. If anything he’ll dial up his powers!” Spencer could sense Loki’s plan though he hadn’t gotten to that point in the comic book yet. 

“How would you know child?”

“I don’t! But you said you were the villain so why would he help you?”

Loki had to do something to get himself out of here alive. “Because I’ll kill him if he doesn’t.”

“I can pretty much assure you that’s not going to work,” Spencer replied. He wasn’t going to be able to convince the god of anything else but he also couldn’t stop himself from rambling. “If his ice gets anymore than -18 celsius, the moisture will disappear from it which means that it’ll be cold enough to crack things with, including the Frost Giants and your own bones. But what do I know, I only have an IQ of 187.”

Loki rolled his eyes at the child. What did he know of Asgard? Though he was still rather impressed. The smartest Midgardian child he’d ever met. “I will make it out of here and you will wake up from this nightmare.”

Nightmare? This was cool. “Everyone has their own nightmares,” he said under his breath before Loki began his in vain attempt to turn the tide in his favor. 

Just as Spencer had suspected, Iceman refused to stop the path Loki had started him on. He was going to eradicate them all. As his hands outstretched, Loki pushed Spencer back and attempted to blast Iceman with magic, only to have Spencer’s theory come true. He could see the ice getting colder and harder. The sheer blistering temperature coming from their fight drew the Frost Giants back toward them and Spencer watched as Iceman literally eviscerated two of them on the spot. “Get back!” Loki yelled.

For the son of Frost Giants, Loki was skilled with fire as well, conjuring a fireball that melted another two giants only to have the rest of them swarm him. Out of the corner of Spencer’s eye, he saw Thor get up off the ground and retreat from the room, only to return near him moments later. “Who are you?” He asked.

“Spencer!” He yelled over the roar of the fight before them. “I’m from Midgard. I’m dreaming.”

“You must leave!” Thor cried. “This is no place for you!”

“I have to wake up!”

Thor held his hands out and cracked the wall of Loki’s castle with a bolt of lightning that brought a wall down on the giants and Loki as well. Spencer watched in horror as the debris piled on top of them, wanting to help until Thor wrenched him back hard enough to knock his head against the wall.

—–

Spencer inhaled sharply as his head popped up from the desk. The comic book was on the floor unharmed. “Woah…what just happened?” He whispered to himself.

Quickly, he returned to the comic to finish the story. He needed to know what happened after he hit his head against the wall. Thor had been able to pull Loki from the wreckage and considered his most recent betrayal cleaned off the slate for a previous incident where Loki had saved his life. “Good,” he smiled to himself. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Loki just yet.

Finishing up the comic, he placed it back in its packaging and returned it to his backpack so he could give it back to Rudra next time he saw him. Comic books were transportive, Spencer thought to himself. He just never realized until now how true a statement it was.


End file.
